Creekly Curiosity

We begin!

            in autumn yellow wash

            filtered sunshine

            fire trail parking lot

in our beloved berkeley hills and their

                            “subsequent sculpturing of water”

                                        without which none of us would be here

We begin

            where so much has already

                            begun and always begins

how easy to feel

cold rhythms of history

high in the brown-green hill

the creek goes under earth

that we stand atop

                                                            distanced

as we walk across spongy astroturf

            almost like moss

            with pop music blaring

onto campus and we reunite again

            through little inch culvert

textured tierra under my bare feet

singing songs in creek language in the dark tunnel together all harmonizing splashing sploshing

feet feel redwood needles pebbles sharp ouch smooth cool silty slime

IVY!

even on campus

where things have long been altered

one can still submerge

the creek gathers:

            stuff tossed or drifted

            farmers market

            people from everywhere

            colossal campus

            colored houses with tended gardens of exotics

then we reach daylit creek again at sacramento street

Barbara lets us see

she’s grateful for the creek-speak-sound and for our creek-ly curiosity

we walk some more and then

all the creek and city and walk

pours out of the dark tunnel

stinky sulfur

into open space in time for

sunset

I sit and my feet buzz

Berkeley, walked

from hills to sea

“a day in the life of an urban creek”

we pause

all of us

in reverence to the full rising moon

in a deep lavender sky

me and steve and zen and jashvina and ariel and myles and eric and

the creek and the moon

we take the 51b back and

life carries on without a stitch.

Creek music http://vimeo.com/80123029

At first

At first

It is not as simple

To think you could see

How the wind and falling leaf flirt

Carried away from the branch, so nimble

To the cold autumn vastness of the inland sea

This relationship is the poetry of the rolling ripples

- Salmon Foreboding

"Whose parks? OUR parks!"

Protest marching is a sort of traveling with no real destination, at least in physical space. Winding sinuously through city streets, the point is to inhabit and occupy a place – and maybe cause a few traffic jams in the process. This is how Pittsburgh and I got to know one another.

Timshel

Perhaps poetry and science could re-enchant the world
giving substance to that feeling I get
when Foxy puts her muzzle atop my scalp
or when I walk through old growth redwoods
and howl through the lush thick air

I cannot know what other feels
be other animal, mineral, vegetable
but somehow the mystery
allows for more truths
isn't it amazing!

to imagine how that redwood thinks,
in what terms and in what colors
its poetry all wrapped up in rings
its poetry deep dark down in mycorrhizae
(and isn't that word a poem?)

if it weren't for poetry I might not know
how my wonder relates to your wonder
or her wonder or its wonder
my sadness their sadness our sadness
and isn't it amazing!

to fall in love and connect to another being
and the whole world becomes possible
as I start feeling in new shades of color and sound
and we are Dr. Doolittles with each other
and suddenly the redwood's poetry becomes possible

today I look out upon the shoulders
of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman
and also chaparral, sequoia, tulip tree
the matter in this concrete bench
rivers like the Potomac and Sacramento

whose poetry my child body reads
and somehow my multiplying cells believe
that a re-enchanted world might last forever
in all of the good ways
and none of the bad

discovery

the scent of jeffrey pine
catches me by surprise
in september rain

gentle cones and butterscotch
help me find who is and who's not
before the hailstorm starts

nose pressed between the bark
mystery in its heart
how good it smells right now!

A sobering milestone

Yesterday, a research station measured 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosfere for the first time in history, 50ppm above what scientists say a life-supporting planet can handle (as we know it). It is indeed a sobering milestone, but what does it mean, really? As humans and animals of the earth, we cannot sense atmospheric carbon levels; we have no goosebumps for that. 

But we can sense the disruption of our seasons, the sickening of the landscapes that we co-inhabit; we can hear the pain in the voices of our loved ones who are desperate and disheartened about our future and present - we can see it in their eyes.

I remember when I was a kid and we talked about climate change as something coming in the future. I remember, too, when answers seemed clearer and I had more faith in movements, momentum, and myself. Change happens fast and we are now inside the storm. And I can't think of anything to do , but go for a walk, and hear what others - humans and non-humans alike - have to say.